Legislative/Advocacy

AAHomecare Seeks Data for Audit Survey

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WASHINGTON, DC – The AAHomecare Audit initiative will educate Congress and regulatory bodies about the burdens of audits, but more raw numbers are needed. Kim Brummett, vice president of Regulatory Affairs, sat down with Medtrade Monday to talk about the need for data and why it’s time to help AAHomecare in the quest to ease audits.

Medtrade Monday: What do you say to those who claim they don’t have enough time?Kim Brummett, vice president of Regulatory Affairs: As an industry we need to determine if we really want to see changes to the audit process. If we really don’t have the time to aggregate and report our data, then we need to accept the state of audits as they exist today and the potential for them to get worse. To me, this is one of the most important thing that suppliers should be willing to devote time and attention to.

Medtrade Monday: What is the best-case scenario for use of the data, assuming you get enough?Brummett: The goal is for the reports to be used to educate congress and regulatory bodies of the work load, volumes, cost and overturn rates of audits to further the enactment of audit reform. We can also potentially use this to bench mark suppliers to each other on audit volumes to further demonstrate inconsistencies.

Medtrade Monday: How long does the survey take?Brummett: Suppliers need to understand the data elements and be able to report them in the manner in which the survey asks. The challenge for our industry is everyone tracks differently, until we align and track/report the same way, we will never be able to aggregate the data. Once a supplier understands what is needed, the actually entry time should be no more than an hour.

Medtrade Monday: How would you characterize the problem of audits in 2015? Still miserable? Slightly better? Worse?Brummett: I think audits in general from the MAC perspective are the same or slightly worse that last year, the bigger challenge is we stand a good chance of audits in general only increasing given the reports to Congress and the general consensus that there are millions/billions in Medicare payments for claims that shouldn’t be based on insufficient documentation. The RAC audits this year have been better, but only due to the protest issues on the part of the contractors, we know that 2016 will be much more difficult with RACs.

Stand Up for Homecare at Medtrade
ATLANTA – If you are joining thousands of your peers at this October’s Medtrade in Atlanta, we hope you will include the Stand Up for Homecarereception in your plans. We encourage you to mark you calendar now to join us from 5:30-7:00 pm on Monday, October 27, on the rooftop deck at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which is within easy walking distance of the Georgia World Congress Center and overlooks Centennial Olympic Park. Register today! The Stand Up for Homecare reception is the premiere networking event for the HME community, and raises funds that help us build mutually supportive relationships with HME consumer/patient groups, as well as enabling outreach and educational efforts aimed at congress and the media.